Sweet Hello
by 9r7g5h
Summary: Their reunion, while not what Gabrielle had been expecting, was still the sweetest hello she could have imagined.


**AN** : I actually wrote this one at 4 in the morning last night, so it's not the most coherent. But I still like it, you know? The prompt was "Who were you with?" Hopefully I did it justice, and you all enjoy!

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own Xena.

* * *

Death wasn't like she expected it to be. At least, not this time around.

Before, it had always been so confusing- the sudden break from life almost more than her thoughts could handle, the simultaneous confirmation and destruction of everything she had ever known and believed to be true, a thousand ideals twisting together to create a vast realm of the afterlife she couldn't even begin to understand. She had tried, once, to a few Amazons who had asked her for a tale, one of the one she didn't normally tell. Having had a few glasses of wine, the sweet liquid warming her stomach and softening the hardened lines decades of traveling and fighting had molded into her skin, she had tried.

Tried to explain that everyone was right, that it all existed peacefully side by side: Tartarus and the Elysian Fields, Heaven and Hell, Hel and Valhalla, Eternity- there was no right and no wrong, just the end your soul eventually belonged to.

It had taken her hours to explain it all, having had to lay out the unfamiliar cultures to the women first before they could understand that it wasn't all the same with just different names, for them to truly grasp the meaning of her words. It had left all of their minds spinning by the end of it, and that was the last time she tried to explain anything to anyone while tipsy, especially if those 'anyones' were just as equally tipsy Amazons.

So, before, death had always been so confusing. If she couldn't even grasp it fully while experiencing it, how could she while alive?

But this time? This time, greeted not by angels or demons, not by a toxic river and a grumpy boat keeper demanding payment, not by a mountain waiting to admit her into eternity, it was all so simple.

This time she was greet by a warm, crackling fire, fish and rabbits merrily cooking over the flames, and a pair of eyes and gentle smile she hadn't seen in sixty years.

Gabrielle's death had been an accident- she had been traveling home from seeing Eve and her children, safely surrounded by the Amazonian guard that insisted on accompanying her whenever she left the safety of the Nation to visit the kids, and her horse had spooked. Whether it was a snake or some other small animal, the horse had thrown her, and she had awoken here.

Awoken here young, her body missing the multitude of pain and aches it had gathered as she neared her eighty-fifth birthday, and even if it was an accident, not the most dignified way to go, Gabrielle was glad.

She had lived a good, long life, had helped Eve thought her twenties and seen two of her own into adulthood, and she was ready to rest. Rest with her.

"What do you have cooking?"

For a moment Gabrielle was almost mortified that those were the first words out of her mouth to her soulmate, but Xena's smile just grew wider, laughter bubbling from her lips, and the sound alone was enough to drive off any embarrassment.

She had missed that sound.

"Rabbit," Xena said, motioning for Gabrielle to join her. Looking just like she had all those years ago, dressed in her leathers, though the armor was gone, Xena looked as if not a single day had passed, as if they had only been parted long enough for her to catch and prepare this feast. "Salmon, since you're so keen on always eating it," she added teasingly, her fingers poking at Gabrielle's side after she had settled down next to her, drawing a squeak from the bard. "And if neither of those appeal to you," Xena finished with a flourish, grabbing the bag next to her and opening it for Gabrielle to see inside, "we have bread, cheese, fruits, berries, and enough wine to drown a horse. Courtesy of Michael, who sends his regards."

"What is this place?" Gabrielle accepted the fish when Xena pulled it from the flames, her teeth singing into the flesh eagerly- she wasn't hungry, far from it, but at the same time she could feel how empty her stomach was, knew she should be starving, and so started in before her abdomen could begin to speak for her. "It looks like home, but…"

"It's Heaven," Xena confirmed. "After I died, there was a lot of just sitting around. I couldn't become an angel again, I wasn't allowed to walk as a ghost on the mortal realm- it was really boring, I'll tell you what. So, I talked to Michael, and got this place set up for us." Xena flashed her another grin before shifting slightly so their sides were more pressed together. "Our own little piece of paradise, where we can rest until our newest lives. At least, it is now that you're here."

They ate in silence after that, Gabrielle focusing on the food before her, filling the empty spaces in her gut while her mind raced, a dozen, a hundred questions about what Xena had been up for the last six decades trying to sort themselves into a reasonable order. It was almost dizzying, in a good way.

Finally deciding on the first question she wanted to answer, Gabrielle threw her finished stick into the fire and turned to face her, the words on the tip of her tongue.

"Tell me about your kids."

The sentence she had prepared died on her tongue before it could even be born as Xena spoke, still working her way through a rabbit leg as she asked- a convenient reason for her to not look at her.

It was not the first question Gabrielle had been expecting- she hadn't been expecting Xena to ask many, not when the dead could hear your thoughts- but she shrugged and settled back against the log.

She had few regrets from the actions she had taken during her life, the biggest being listening to Xena instead of dumping her ashes into the water, but her children were not one of them.

"Anyte and Alexander," Gabrielle said with a little bit of a shrug, her mouth quirking into a small smile. "Good kids, if a bit too much like me, in different ways. An's a dreamer. She writes beautifully- Xena, I wish you could read some of her works. She's as good as, perhaps even better, then I used to be. And she's a good ruler, too. When I stepped down from my position as Queen, she stepped up, and took good care of the Nation."

What Gabrielle didn't say was that his eyes had been the same shade of blue, his hair the same shade of black, had held a similar stare to her own- almost a male doppleganger, if Gabrielle had ever seen one, though not quite. Too different from _her_ for the illusion to be complete, but it had been good enough for a single night on the night she needed the illusion the most, when it marked another year without her after so many years alone.

"And Alexander?"

"He's a warrior," Gabrielle said, shaking her head and letting out a small chuckle. "He sees the world as victories and defeats, as a giant chest board he can one day conquer. He grew up to be great. And he still is."

Again, what she didn't say, this time, was that he had been as different from her as she could get. Blonde hair, brown eyes, dark skinned, a peaceful farmer poet who had never taken up a sword, who had never hurt another being beyond what he needed for his food, a good, honest man who might have loved her, if she had given him the chance and not just one stolen night- again, on the night she needed someone, anyone, the most, though she had refused to pretend any longer. She had refused to believe the body next to her in bed could be hers, and so while she had still mourned and taken her comfort with someone willing, she had refused to find someone who fit the illusion.

And perhaps this was what Xena wanted, the details without the details; or perhaps she wanted to know it all, wanted to know the names of the two men and dozen women she had taken to bed in her time on earth, during those handfuls of years where the pain had still been fresh enough to mourn, before the date, while still painful, had begun to fade into just a twinge on her heart instead of a full body ache.

Gabrielle wasn't sure, but whatever reason Xena was asking, Gabrielle wasn't ashamed of what she would say. She wasn't ashamed of the children she had born and raised, children Eve had welcomed into the world as siblings, children who had grown up knowing Xena's name and her stories, who had even claimed her as one of their mothers, if only spirit and not blood. Although she remained relaxed, her body still leaning against Xena's, she knew it would only take a moment for her to tense and draw away- not the reunion she had been hoping for.

"Were you happy, Gabrielle?"

It was then that she understood- this was Xena caring, Xena hoping that Gabrielle would speak of her children fondly, Xena glad that Gabrielle had been able to move on, at least in some little way, and have what passed as a normal life for the two of them. Xena getting to the core of it all and hoping that, in there, there would still be joy.

"With my writing, yes." She had taken to writing plays after Xena had gone, finally trying her hand at fiction now that life no longer held her muse. From what she had heard, her latest work had been played for the Emperor of Chin, but she wouldn't know. She had only ever seen her plays performed by some of the Amazons, talented young women with great skills for the theatre. "With my children, yes," Gabrielle said after a moment, the fight she had felt building in her chest retreating. "All three of them, and my grandchildren." She reached out and took Xena's hand, their fingers intertwining. "Eve started calling me Mom, after… and she named one of her children, her first girl, after you. Kind of. Xelena is similar enough that most people understood." Leaning her head against her shoulder, Gabrielle shrugged. "It wasn't the happiest life, but I was content."

"Then I'm glad."

All it took were those three little words for Gabrielle to break, the tears she hadn't even realized she had been fighting spilling from her eyes, wetting her cheeks and soaking into Xena's leathers as Xena's arms wrapped around her, holding her close enough to finally start putting back together the broken pieces Gabrielle had learned to ignore over the years, to finally fill in the empty hole she had almost forced herself to forget, though everything Xena did only made her cry harder.

The kisses against her forehead and temple had her sob, the hands rubbing her back had her gasping for breath, and it took everything within her not to shake as Xena pulled her into her lap and rocked her, humming softly in her ear as she tried to soothe away the pain. Only it all made it worse because there was no pain, not anymore.

The agony she had been living with every day for the last sixty years was finally gone, and that relief, that sense of wholeness, was so foreign and beautiful she could barely catch her breath, much less keep her composure.

It was only when she lifted her face from Xena's neck and tilted it upwards that she was able to calm herself, the feel of Xena's lips kissing away the tears on her cheeks, the now invisible crow's-feet, the missing stress wrinkles decades of ruling a constantly fluctuating nation had brought, kissed away the sadness and tiredness and pure grief that had haunted her, even when she had thought she had accepted it.

Kissed her lips, fully driving away the last of the darkness that had resided in her heart for so many years that she hadn't even realized was there.

They talked, a thousand more questions and answers between the two of them, and they kissed, making up for the decades of lost time, and together they began to heal, heal the breaks and cracks and fill in the missing pieces that had been gone from them both, left behind with the other, the moment the sun had set on Japa.

They were together again, and no matter their pasts, no matter who had come between that bitter goodbye and this sweet hello, they were finally together again, and would be for every life to come.


End file.
